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104-760: Ceres is the only one of Rome's many agricultural deities to be listed among the Dii Consentes , Rome's equivalent to the Twelve Olympians of Greek mythology. The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter , whose mythology was reinterpreted for Ceres in Roman art and literature . The name Cerēs stems from Proto-Italic *kerēs ('with grain, Ceres'; cf. Faliscan ceres , Oscan kerrí 'Cererī' < * ker-s-ēi- < * ker-es-ēi- ), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₃-os ('nourishment, grain'),

208-793: A proflamen , or by a member without that title who could act as a substitute for the flamen ( qui vice flaminis fungebatur ). The twelve flamines minores could be plebeians . Some of the deities whose cult they tended were rather obscure, and only ten are known by name: There were two other flamines minores during the Republican period, but the names of the deities they cultivated are unknown. The flamines minores seem mostly connected to agriculture or local cults. The change to an urban way of life may explain why these deities lost their importance or fell into oblivion. The Floralis and Pomonalis are not recorded in calendars as their festivals were moveable. Some information exists for

312-630: A homo sacer who had offended Ceres' laws against tyranny. The Eleusinian mysteries became increasingly popular during the late Republic. Early Roman initiates at Eleusis in Greece included Sulla and Cicero ; thereafter many Emperors were initiated, including Hadrian , who founded an Eleusinian cult centre in Rome itself. In Late Republican politics, aristocratic traditionalists and popularists used coinage to propagate their competing claims to Ceres' favour. A coin of Sulla shows Ceres on one side, and on

416-399: A flamen , allegedly of great antiquity, was a hat called an apex and a heavy cloak called a laena . The laena was a double-thick wool cloak with a fringed edge, and was worn over the flamen's toga with a clasp to hold it around his throat. The apex was a leather skull-cap with a chin-strap and a point of olive wood on its top, like a spindle, with a little fluff of wool at the base of

520-572: A basis for the Eleusinian mysteries . From the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna , in Sicily , was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult centre, and Libera was recognised as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Demeter's daughter Persephone . Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's abduction into the underworld by Hades . The new, women-only cult to "mother and maiden" took its place alongside

624-599: A derivative of the root *ḱerh₃- , meaning 'to feed'. The Proto-Italic adjective * keresjo - ('belonging to Ceres') can also be reconstructed from Oscan kerríiúí (fem. kerríiai ), and Umbrian śerfi (fem. śerfie ). A masculine form * keres-o - ('with grain, Cerrus') is attested in Umbrian śerfe . The spelling of Latin Cerus , a masculine form of Ceres denoting the creator (cf. Cerus manus 'creator bonus', duonus Cerus 'good Cerus'), might also reflect Cerrus , which would match

728-448: A divinity ( divus ) of the Roman state. Thereafter, any deceased emperor could be made divus by vote of the senate and consent of his successor, and as a divus he would be served by a flamen. The flamen 's role in relation to living emperors is uncertain; no living emperor is known to have received official divine worship; see Imperial cult . A flamen could also be represented by

832-488: A female aspect of Liber. No native Roman myths of Ceres are known. According to interpretatio romana , by which Roman deities were identified with their Greek counterparts, she was an equivalent to Demeter, one of the Twelve Olympians of Greek religion and mythology; this made Ceres one of Rome's twelve Di Consentes , daughter of Saturn and Ops , sister of Jupiter , mother of Proserpina by Jupiter and sister of Juno , Vesta , Neptune and Dis . Ceres' known mythology

936-406: A fine robe of office and a curule chair . The flamines were circumscribed by many taboos . The flamen was a sacred position within Roman society; however, it could be used for political purposes. Certain people could be appointed as flamines to stop them from gaining power. For example, flamines were not allowed to ride a horse; therefore, this would make it extremely difficult for such

1040-412: A large number of the many Roman deities known by name either supported farming or were devoted solely to a specific agricultural function. From 272 to 264 BC, four temples were dedicated separately to the agricultural deities Consus , Tellus , Pales , and Vortumnus . The establishment of four such temples within a period of eight years indicates a high degree of concern for stabilizing and developing

1144-406: A new Flamen Dialis , but "scrutinized each candidate's qualifications in order to ensure that he and his wife were fit to serve." After the flamen and his wife were chosen, they then had to participate in a Roman tradition and ceremony known as captio . This ceremony was performed by an augur . It was the augur's job to make sure the gods would accept the new flamen . This was done by asking for

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1248-440: A new form of Cerean cult was officially imported from Magna Graecia, it was known as the ritus graecus (Greek rite) of Ceres, and was distinct from her older Roman rites. The older forms of Aventine rites to Ceres remain uncertain. Most Roman cults were led by men, and the officiant's head was covered by a fold of his toga. In the Roman ritus graecus , a male celebrant wore Greek-style vestments, and remained bareheaded before

1352-404: A person to lead and command an army. By attaining such a position, the flamines were not permitted to run or hold a political office. There may have been flamines appointed simply to stop their progression in power and politics for reasons such as making enemies or simply jealousy. In post-Antiquity usage, the designation "flamen" can apply, by extension, to priests in general. The flamen

1456-457: A person was deemed a criminal, they could appeal to a flamen, who had the power of pardoning criminals. There were also several other privileges that the flamen possessed. According to Cyril Bailey these include: exemption from the Patria Potestas (lit. power of the father) of his father; the wearing of the toga praetexta ; and, the privileges of having a lictor of his own, of sitting on

1560-502: A solitary spot out of the city, to which the public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her. This spot is to be reverenced with religious awe and solemnity of demeanour, by those whose affairs lead them to visit it." During the early Imperial era, soothsayers advised Pliny the Younger to restore an ancient, "old and narrow" temple to Ceres, at his rural property near Como . It contained an ancient wooden cult statue of

1664-424: A translation of Demeter's Greek epithet, thesmophoros . As Ceres' first plough-furrow opened the earth (Tellus' realm) to the world of men and created the first field and its boundary, her laws determined the course of settled, lawful, civilised life. Crimes against fields and harvest were crimes against the people and their protective deity. Landowners who allowed their flocks to graze on public land were fined by

1768-517: Is Faustina the Younger ", empress-wife of Pius' successor Marcus Aurelius . In Britain, a soldier's inscription of the 2nd century AD attests to Ceres' role in the popular syncretism of the times. She is "the bearer of ears of corn", the "Syrian Goddess", identical with the universal heavenly Mother, the Magna Mater and Virgo , virgin mother of the gods. She is peace and virtue, and inventor of justice: she weighs "Life and Right" in her scale. During

1872-410: Is also the originator of bloody animal sacrifice, a necessity in the renewal of life. She has a particular enmity towards her own sacrificial animal, the pig. Pigs offend her by their destructive rooting-up of field crops under her protection; and in the myth of Proserpina's abduction on the plains of Henna (Enna), her tracks were obscured by their trampling. If not for them, Ceres might have been spared

1976-460: Is closely identified with Tellus and, as Ceres legifera (law-bearer), she "bears the laws" of marriage. In the most solemn form of marriage, confarreatio , the bride and groom shared a cake made of far, the ancient wheat-type particularly associated with Ceres. From at least the mid-republican era, an official, joint cult to Ceres and Proserpina reinforced Ceres' connection with Roman ideals of female virtue. The promotion of this cult coincides with

2080-567: Is featured both as a goddess and Queen of Sicilly in De Mulieribus Claris , a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio , composed in 1361–62 and notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature. Ceres appears briefly to bless the wedding of Ferdinand and Miranda, in a masque at

2184-425: Is indistinguishable from Demeter's: When Ceres sought through all the earth with lit torches for Proserpina, who had been seized by Dis Pater, she called her with shouts where three or four roads meet; from this it has endured in her rites that on certain days a lamentation is raised at the crossroads everywhere by the matronae . Ovid likens Ceres' devotion to her own offspring to that of a cow to its calf; but she

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2288-462: Is shown, this probably belongs to the opium poppy ( papaver somniferum , the "sleep-bearing poppy"). The Roman poet Vergil, in Georgics , 1.212, describes this as Cereale papaver , or "Ceres' poppy", which eases pain and brings sleep - the deepest sleep of all being death. Poppies are often woven into Ceres' wheat-stalk crown, the corona spicea , worn by her priestesses and devotees. Ceres maintained

2392-485: The flamines maiores . The etymology of flamen remains obscure, and perhaps undecidable. The term is traditionally connected with the Proto-Germanic verb *blōtaną ("to sacrifice"; cf. Gothic blotan ), by positing a Proto-Indo-European stem *bʰleh₂d-m(e)n- (or *bʰleh₂g-m(e)n- ), which could have originally meant "sacrifice". However, the link remains uncertain since it is impossible to decide whether

2496-452: The divus Julius Caesar be added as a thirteenth. Twelve specialized gods known only by name are invoked for the "cereal rite" (sacrum cereale) in honor of Ceres and Tellus. The twelve are all male, with names formed from the agent suffix -tor . Although their gender indicates that they are not aspects of the two goddesses who were the main recipients of the sacrum, their names are "mere appellatives" for verbal functions. The rite

2600-567: The Imperial era , the cult of a deified emperor ( divus ) also had a flamen. The fifteen Republican flamens were members of the Pontifical College , who administered state-sponsored religion. When the office of flamen was vacant, a pontifex could serve as a temporary replacement, although only the pontifex maximus is known to have substituted for the Flamen Dialis , one of

2704-459: The Roman Republic . The most important of these were the three flamines maiores (or "major priests"), who served the important Roman gods Jupiter , Mars , and Quirinus . The remaining twelve were the flamines minores ("lesser priests"). Two of the minores served deities whose names are now unknown; among the others are deities about whom little is known other than the name. During

2808-581: The Vedic term to be as plausible. He notes that the hypothesis of a connection to Gothic blotan and via Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₂d-m(e)n- is equally plausible. At the time of the religious reformation by Augustus , the origins and functions of many of the long-neglected gods resident in Rome were confusing even to the Romans themselves. The obscurity of some of the deities assigned a flamen (for example Falacer , Palatua , Quirinus and Volturnus ) suggests that

2912-462: The grain supply ( annona ) and later the plebeian grain doles ( frumentationes ), the organisation and management of public games in general, and the maintenance of Rome's streets and public buildings. Otherwise, in Rome and throughout Italy, as at her ancient sanctuaries of Henna and Catena, Ceres' ritus graecus and her joint cult with Proserpina were invariably led by female sacerdotes , drawn from local and Roman elites: Cicero notes that once

3016-520: The heads of households . An inscription at Capua names a male sacerdos Cerialis mundalis , a priest dedicated to Ceres' rites of the mundus . The plebeian aediles had minor or occasional priestly functions at Ceres' Aventine Temple and were responsible for its management and financial affairs including collection of fines, the organisation of ludi Cerealia and probably the Cerealia itself. Their cure (care and jurisdiction) included, or came to include,

3120-498: The late Roman Republic and early Empire describe Ceres' Aventine temple and rites as conspicuously Greek. In modern scholarship, this is taken as further evidence of long-standing connections between the plebeians, Ceres and Magna Graecia. It also raises unanswered questions on the nature, history and character of these associations: the Triad itself may have been a self-consciously Roman cult formulation based on Greco-Italic precedents. When

3224-711: The mundus is first attested in the Late Republican Era, by Varro . The jurist Cato understood the shape of the mundus as a reflection or inversion of the dome of the upper heavens. Di Luzio observes that the Roman mundus shared functional and conceptual similarities with certain types of underground "pit altar" or megaron , used in Demeter's Thesmophoria. Roman tradition held that the mundus had been dug and sealed by Romulus as part of Rome's foundation; Plutarch compares it to pits dug by Etruscan colonists, containing soil brought from their parent city, used to dedicate

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3328-498: The Gauls. Ralph Mathisen writes, "Their sacred cult should not be abandoned as long as a single person survived to observe it". The flamines were also prohibited from many different actions and rituals. In the case of death, flamines were in charge of performing ritual sacrificing. However, other than that, contact with anything related to death was prohibited so that the flamen could partake in his religious duties. One extreme example

3432-669: The Imperial family as Ceres, or with some of her attributes. Ceres was served by several public priesthoods. Some were male; her senior priest, the flamen cerialis , also served Tellus and was usually plebeian by ancestry or adoption. Her public cult at the Ambarvalia , or "perambulation of fields" identified her with Dea Dia , and was led by the Arval Brethren ("The Brothers of the Fields"); rural versions of these rites were led as private cult by

3536-457: The Late Imperial era, Ceres gradually "slips into obscurity"; the last known official association of the Imperial family with her symbols is a coin issue of Septimius Severus (AD 193–211), showing his empress, Julia Domna , in the corona spicea . After the reign of Claudius Gothicus , no coinage shows Ceres' image. Even so, an initiate of her mysteries is attested in the 5th century AD, after

3640-511: The Latin form reflects an earlier flă-men , flăd-men or flăg-smen . Indo-European scholar G. Dumézil attempted to link the term to the Sanskrit word brahman . Dumézil himself notes that the etymology has problems in terms of phonological shifts, and the cognates have not been universally accepted by modern scholars. Andrew Sihler considers the claim that flamen might be a cognate of

3744-399: The Latin verb gerere , "to bear, bring forth, produce", because the goddess was linked to pastoral , agricultural and human fertility. Throughout the Roman era, Ceres' name was synonymous with grain and, by extension, with bread. Ceres was credited with the discovery of spelt wheat (Latin far ), the yoking of oxen and ploughing, the sowing, protection and nourishing of the young seed, and

3848-514: The Middle Republic onwards, expiation was increasingly addressed to her as mother to Proserpina. The last known followed Rome's Great Fire of 64 AD . The cause or causes of the fire remained uncertain, but its disastrous extent was taken as a sign of offense against Juno , Vulcan , and Ceres-with-Proserpina, who were all given expiatory cult. Champlin (2003) perceives the expiations to Vulcan and Ceres in particular as attempted populist appeals by

3952-589: The Pelignan goddess Angitia Cerealis has been identified with the Roman goddess Angerona (associated with childbirth). Ceres was patron and protector of plebeian laws , rights and Tribunes . Her Aventine Temple served the plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury and possibly law-court; its foundation was contemporaneous with the passage of the Lex Sacrata , which established the office and person of plebeian aediles and tribunes as inviolate representatives of

4056-508: The Roman people. Tribunes were legally immune to arrest or threat, and the lives and property of those who violated this law were forfeit to Ceres. The Lex Hortensia of 287 BC extended plebeian laws to the city and all its citizens. The official decrees of the Senate ( senatus consulta ) were placed in Ceres' Temple, under the guardianship of the goddess and her aediles. Livy puts the reason bluntly:

4160-457: The behest of the Sibylline oracle , the senate sent the quindecimviri to Ceres' ancient cult centre at Henna in Sicily , the goddess' supposed place of origin and earthly home. Some kind of religious consultation or propitiation was given, either to expiate Gracchus' murder – as later Roman sources would claim – or to justify it as the lawful killing of a would-be king or demagogue ,

4264-628: The benefit of all. The emperor Augustus began the restoration of Ceres' Aventine Temple; his successor Tiberius completed it. Of the several figures on the Augustan Ara Pacis , one doubles as a portrait of the Empress Livia , who wears Ceres' corona spicea . Another has been variously identified in modern scholarship as Tellus, Venus, Pax or Ceres, or in Spaeth's analysis, a deliberately broad composite of them all. The emperor Claudius ' reformed

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4368-447: The boundaries between the realms of the living and the dead, and was an essential presence at funerals. Given acceptable rites and sacrifice, she helped the deceased into the afterlife as an underworld shade, or deity ( Di Manes ). Those whose death was premature, unexpected or untimely were thought to remain in the upper world, and haunt the living as a wandering, vengeful ghost ( Lemur ). They could be exorcised, but only when their death

4472-590: The conquest of the Latins. Postumius' vow was fulfilled in 493 BC: Ceres became the central deity of the new Triad , housed in a new-built Aventine temple . She was also – or became – the patron goddess of the plebs , whose enterprise as tenant farmers, estate managers, agricultural factors and importers was a mainstay of Roman agriculture. Much of Rome's grain was imported from territories of Magna Graecia , particularly from Sicily , which later Roman mythographers describe as Ceres' "earthly home". Writers of

4576-421: The consuls could no longer seek advantage for themselves by arbitrarily tampering with the laws of Rome. The Temple might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by patrician magistrates. Ceres' temple, games and cult were at least part-funded by fines imposed on those who offended the laws placed under her protection; the poet Vergil later calls her legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres),

4680-400: The creation of such a costume fell in the hands of the flaminica . The costume was handmade and a ritual blade known as secespikta was used in the process. The laena had to be made of wool, because wool was seen as pure and the most appropriate clothing to serve the gods. The flamen and the flaminica had special roles that could not be done by the other. This position in Roman society

4784-474: The curule chair, and having an ex officio place in the Senate. During the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BCE, the flamines were also given a special task. In an attempt to preserve Roman culture and history, the flamines and other religious orders such as the vestals were in charge of the sacred and religious items of Rome. Their objective was to take these treasures out of Rome so they would not be destroyed by

4888-508: The decades of Civil War that ushered in the Empire, such images and dedications proliferate on Rome's coinage: Julius Caesar , his opponents, his assassins and his heirs alike claimed the favour and support of Ceres and her plebeian proteges, with coin issues that celebrate Ceres, Libertas (liberty) and Victoria (victory). Imperial theology conscripted Rome's traditional cults as the divine upholders of Imperial Pax (peace) and prosperity, for

4992-480: The deity, or else wore a wreath. While Ceres' original Aventine cult was led by male priests, her "Greek rites" ( ritus graecus Cereris ) were exclusively female. Towards the end of the Second Punic War , around 205 BC, an officially recognised joint cult to Ceres and her daughter Proserpina was brought to Rome from Southern Italy (part of Magna Graecia ) along with Greek priestesses to serve it. In Rome, this

5096-415: The difference was not substantial. Others, among them Dumézil , believe that inherent differences lay in the right of the auspicia maiora and the ritual of inauguration that concerned only the maiores by birth as farreati , that is, as children of parents married through the ritual of confarreatio , which was the form of marriage in turn required for maiores . The maiores also had

5200-438: The earth, her arms entwined by snakes, her outstretched hands bearing poppies and wheat, or her head crowned with fruits and vines. In free-standing statuary, she commonly wears a wheat-crown, or holds a wheat spray. Moneyers of the Republican era use Ceres' image, wheat ears and garlands to advertise their connections with prosperity, the annona and the popular interest. Some Imperial coin images depict important female members of

5304-665: The ending of William Shakespeare 's play The Tempest (1611). In 1801, a newly discovered dwarf planet or asteroid was named after her . Two years later, the newly discovered element Cerium was named after the dwarf planet. An aria in praise of Ceres is sung in Act 4 of the opera The Trojans (first performance 1863) by Hector Berlioz . A misanthropic poem recited by Dmitri in Dostoevsky's 1880 novel The Brothers Karamazov , (part 1, Book 3, chapter 3) reflects on Ceres' heartbroken search for her lost daughter, and her encounter with

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5408-558: The establishment of cities, and as a door-warden of the afterlife, which was co-ruled during the winter months by her daughter Proserpina, queen-companion to Dis . In Roman theology, prodigies were abnormal phenomena that manifested divine anger at human impiety. In Roman histories, prodigies cluster around perceived or actual threats to the Roman state, in particular, famine, war and social disorder, and are expiated as matters of urgency. The establishment of Ceres' Aventine cult has itself been interpreted as an extraordinary expiation after

5512-517: The failure of crops and consequent famine. In Livy's history, Ceres is among the deities placated after a remarkable series of prodigies that accompanied the disasters of the Second Punic War : during the same conflict, a lightning strike at her temple was expiated. A fast in her honour is recorded for 191 BC, to be repeated at 5-year intervals. After 206, she was offered at least 11 further official expiations. Many of these were connected to famine and manifestations of plebeian unrest, rather than war. From

5616-481: The first fruits of the harvest. Warde Fowler speculates the mundus as Rome's first storehouse ( penus ) for seed-grain, later becoming the symbolic penus of the Roman state. In the oldest known Roman calendar, the days of the mundus are marked as C(omitiales) (days when the Comitia met). Later authors mark them as dies religiosus (when no official meetings could be held). Some modern scholars seek to explain this as

5720-431: The gift of agriculture to humankind; before this, it was said, man had subsisted on acorns, and wandered without settlement or laws. She had the power to fertilize, multiply and fructify plant and animal seed, and her laws and rites protected all activities of the agricultural cycle. In January, Ceres (alongside the earth-goddess Tellus ) was offered spelt wheat and a pregnant sow, at the movable Feriae Sementivae . This

5824-518: The goddess, which he replaced. Though this was an unofficial and privately funded cult ( sacra privata ), its annual feast on the Ides of September was attended by pilgrims from all over the region; this feast was also the same day as the Epulum Jovis . Pliny considered this rebuilding a fulfillment of his civic and religious duty. No images of Ceres survive from her pre-Aventine cults; the earliest date to

5928-411: The gods were meant to be served together as husband and wife. This was a partnership where each person was dependent on the other. This is why, when one died, the other would have to step down, because they were not allowed to replace their partner or continue by themselves. The three flamines maiores were required to be patricians : A fourth flamen maior was dedicated to Julius Caesar as

6032-535: The grain cycle, beginning shortly before the Feriae Sementivae. W.H. Roscher lists these deities among the indigitamenta , names used to invoke specific divine functions. In Roman bridal processions, a young boy carried Ceres' torch to light the way; "the most auspicious wood for wedding torches came from the spina alba , the May-tree , which bore many fruits and hence symbolised fertility". The adult males of

6136-403: The grain supply and created its embodiment as an Imperial goddess, Annona , a junior partner to Ceres and the Imperial family. The traditional, Cerean virtues of provision and nourishment were symbolically extended to Imperial family members; some coinage shows Claudius' mother Antonia as an Augusta , wearing the corona spicea . The relationship between the reigning emperor, empress and Ceres

6240-486: The growing crops and protect them from disease and vermin, or to add warmth and vitality to their growth. From c.175 BC, Cerealia included ludi scaenici (theatrical religious events) through April 12 to 18. In the ancient sacrum cereale a priest, probably the Flamen Cerialis , invoked Ceres (and probably Tellus) along with twelve specialised, minor assistant-gods to secure divine help and protection at each stage of

6344-472: The growth of crops, while Tellus provides them a place to grow. In 496 BC, against a background of economic recession and famine in Rome, imminent war against the Latins and a threatened secession by Rome's plebs (citizen commoners), the dictator A. Postumius vowed a temple to Ceres, Liber and Libera on or near the Aventine Hill . The famine ended and Rome's plebeian citizen-soldiery co-operated in

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6448-619: The import of the ritus cereris , patrician senators imported cult to the Greek goddess Cybele and established her as Magna Mater (The Great Mother) within Rome's sacred boundary , facing the Aventine Hill. Like Ceres, Cybele was a form of Graeco-Roman earth goddess. Unlike her, she had mythological ties to Troy , and thus to the Trojan prince Aeneas , mythological ancestor of Rome's founding father and first patrician Romulus . The establishment of official Roman cult to Magna Mater coincided with

6552-468: The king of the gods, Jupiter's blessing, and the gods would respond by providing the proper signs to the people. These ceremonies were known as comitia calata ("callate assemblies") and they were performed on the Capitoline Hill . Such a position in Roman society came with many privileges which in turn gave flamines a unique power. In law and criminal courts, the flamen wielded great power. When

6656-540: The later introduction and accommodation of Greek elements, grafted onto the original mundus rites. The rites of August 24 were held between the agricultural festivals of Consualia and Opiconsivia ; those of October 5 followed the Ieiunium Cereris , and those of November 8 took place during the Plebeian Games . As a whole, the various days of the mundus suggest rites to Ceres as the guardian deity of seed-corn in

6760-497: The middle Republic, and show the Hellenising influence of Demeter's iconography. Some late Republican images recall Ceres' search for Proserpina. Ceres bears a torch, sometimes two, and rides in a chariot drawn by snakes; or she sits on the sacred kiste (chest) that conceals the objects of her mystery rites. Sometimes she holds a caduceus , a symbol of Pax (Roman goddess of Peace). Augustan reliefs show her emergence, plant-like from

6864-431: The new cult had been founded, its earliest priestesses "generally were either from Naples or Velia", cities allied or federated to Rome. Elsewhere, he describes Ceres' Sicilian priestesses as "older women respected for their noble birth and character". Celibacy may have been a condition of their office; sexual abstinence was, according to Ovid, required of those attending Ceres' major, nine-day festival. Her public priesthood

6968-456: The office dated back to Archaic Rome. Many scholars assume that the flamines existed at least from the time of the early Roman kings , prior to the establishment of the Republic . The Romans themselves credited the foundation of the priesthood to Numa Pompilius , the second king of Rome . According to Livy , Numa created the offices of the three flamines maiores and assigned them each

7072-523: The official abolition of all non-Christian cults. The word cereal derives from Ceres' association with edible grains. Whereas Ceres represents food, her son Liber (later indistinguishable from Bacchus ) represents wine and "good living". The Roman comedian Terence (c. 195/185 – c. 159 BC) uses the line sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus which at its simplest translates as "without food and drink, love freezes" or "love needs food and wine to thrive" - probably proverbial and widespread in his own day. It

7176-607: The old; it made no reference to Liber. Thereafter, Ceres was offered two separate and distinctive forms of official cult at the Aventine. Both might have been supervised by the male flamen Cerialis but otherwise, their relationship is unclear. The older form of cult included both men and women, and probably remained a focus for plebeian political identity and discontent. The new form identified its exclusively females initiates and priestesses as upholders of Rome's traditional, patrician -dominated social hierarchy and morality . A year after

7280-415: The only bind they were tied to was their religious position and priesthood. A flamen had to be married. The flamen and his wife, the flaminica , were required to be patricians, and their parents had to be married through the ancient ceremony of confarreatio . This only applied to the flamen, because when they married his wife would become part of his family. Through the process of confarreatio ,

7384-587: The other Italic forms. Archaic cults to Ceres are well-evidenced among Rome's neighbours in the Regal period , including the ancient Latins , Oscans and Sabellians , less certainly among the Etruscans and Umbrians . An archaic Faliscan inscription of c. 600 BC asks her to provide far ( spelt wheat), which was a dietary staple of the Mediterranean world . Ancient Roman etymologists thought that ceres derived from

7488-452: The other a ploughman with yoked oxen: the images, accompanied by the legend "conditor" ("he who stores the grain") claim his rule (a military dictatorship) as regenerative and divinely justified. Popularists used her name and attributes to appeal their guardianship of plebeian interests, particularly the annona and frumentarium ; and plebeian nobles and aediles used them to point out their ancestral connections with plebeians as commoners. In

7592-458: The plebeian aediles, on behalf of Ceres and the people of Rome. Ancient laws of the Twelve Tables forbade the magical charming of field crops from a neighbour's field into one's own, and invoked the death penalty for the illicit removal of field boundaries. An adult who damaged or stole field-crops should be hanged "for Ceres". Any youth guilty of the same offense was to be whipped or fined double

7696-401: The priest and priestess pertained to their bed. Only the flamen and flaminica were allowed to sleep in the bed for ritual reasons, and under no circumstance could they spend the night away from the bed for any longer than three days. This was meant to create and ensure a strong relationship between the couple. The end of the bed was lined with "a thin layer of clay." The official costume of

7800-509: The princeps' gift of frumentio (corn dole) to the masses. Under Nerva's later dynastic successor Antoninus Pius , Imperial theology represents the death and apotheosis of the Empress Faustina the Elder as Ceres' return to Olympus by Jupiter's command. Even then, "her care for mankind continues and the world can rejoice in the warmth of her daughter Proserpina: in Imperial flesh, Proserpina

7904-521: The productivity of Italy following the Pyrrhic War . At the beginning of his treatise on farming , Varro gives a list of twelve deities who are vital to agriculture. These make up a conceptual or theological grouping, and are not known to have received cult collectively. They are: In his Georgics , a collection of poetry on agrarian themes, Vergil gives a list influenced by literary Hellenization and Augustan ideology: The poet proposes that

8008-526: The rise of a plebeian nobility, an increased birthrate among plebeian commoners, and a fall in the birthrate among patrician families. The late Republican Ceres Mater (Mother Ceres) is described as genetrix (progenitress) and alma (nourishing); in the early Imperial era she becomes an Imperial deity, and receives joint cult with Ops Augusta , Ceres' own mother in Imperial guise and a bountiful genetrix in her own right. Several of Ceres' ancient Italic precursors are connected to human fertility and motherhood;

8112-533: The ritual roles of the Portunalis in connection with the cult of the god Quirinus and Volcanalis in connexion with the cult of the goddess Maia on the Kalends of May. Also preserved is the list of deities invoked by the flamen Cerialis when he officiated at sacrifices to the goddesses Ceres and Tellus . Scholars disagree about some differences among flamines maiores and minores . Some maintain

8216-510: The ruling emperor, Nero . The complex and multi-layered origins of the Aventine Triad and Ceres herself allowed multiple interpretations of their relationships, beyond the humanised pattern of relations within the Triad; while Cicero asserts Ceres as mother to both Liber and Libera, consistent with her role as a mothering deity, Varro's more complex theology groups her functionally with Tellus, Terra, Venus (and thus Victoria) and with Libera as

8320-404: The semi-legendary Numa . Ceres' senior, male priesthood was a minor flaminate whose establishment and rites were supposedly also innovations of Numa. Her affinity and joint cult with Tellus, also known as Terra Mater (Mother Earth) may have developed at this time. Much later, during the early Imperial era , Ovid describes these goddesses as "partners in labour"; Ceres provides the "cause" for

8424-415: The spindle. This was the traditional outfit during a ritual or sacrifice performed by the flamen . The flamen would not wear the laena on a daily occurrence. The flamen would also wear special shoes known as calcei . The flamen dress represented status. Only flamines were able to wear such a costume. It separated them from average citizens, politicians, and military figures. The responsibility for

8528-470: The spirits of the dead temporary leave from the underworld to roam lawfully among the living, in what Warde Fowler describes as 'holidays, so to speak, for the ghosts'. The days when the mundus was open were among the very few occasions that Romans made official contact with the collective spirits of the dead, the Di Manes (the others being Parentalia and Lemuralia ). This possibly secondary or late function of

8632-407: The start of a new saeculum (cycle of years). It was followed by Hannibal 's defeat, the end of the Second Punic War and an exceptionally good harvest. Roman victory and recovery could therefore be credited to Magna Mater and patrician piety: so the patricians dined her and each other at her festival banquets. In similar fashion, the plebeian nobility underlined their claims to Ceres. Up to a point,

8736-423: The toils and grief of her lengthy search and separation, and humankind would have been spared the consequent famine. The myth is also a reminder that the gift of agriculture is a contract, and comes at a price. It brings well-being but also mortality. Enna, in Sicily , had strong mythological connections with Ceres and Proserpina, and was the site of Ceres most ancient sanctuary. Flowers were said to bloom throughout

8840-565: The two cults reflected a social and political divide, but when certain prodigies were interpreted as evidence of Ceres' displeasure, the senate appeased her with a new festival, the ieiunium Cereris (" fast of Ceres"). In 133 BC, the plebeian noble and tribune Tiberius Gracchus bypassed the Senate and appealed directly to the popular assembly to pass his proposed land-reforms . Civil unrest spilled into violence; Gracchus and many of his supporters were murdered by their conservative opponents. At

8944-422: The value of damage. Ceres' signs and iconography, like Demeter's from early Mycenae onwards, include poppies - symbolic of fertility, sleep, death and rebirth. Poppies readily grow on soil disturbed by ploughing, as in wheatfields, and bear innumerable tiny seeds. They were raised as a crop by Greek and Roman farmers, partly for their fibrous stems and for the food value of their seeds Where the poppy capsule alone

9048-409: The wedding party waited at the groom's house. A wedding sacrifice was offered to Tellus on the bride's behalf; a sow is the most likely victim . Varro describes the sacrifice of a pig as "a worthy mark of weddings" because "our women, and especially nurses" call the female genitalia porcus (pig). Barbette Spaeth (1996) believes Ceres may have been included in the sacrificial dedication, because she

9152-443: The wife would pass from the manus (hand) of her father to the hand of her husband . This transferred the father's authority to her husband who would also become part of the religious cult. It was necessary for the wife to be a virgin and previously unwed before marriage to a prospective flamen . The flamen and the wife served together. In the case of either's death, the surviving priest would then step down from their position. It

9256-979: The worst and most degraded of humanity. In the US, Ceres is one of the three "goddess offices" held in The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry . She is depicted on the Seal of New Jersey . Statues of her top the Missouri State Capitol , Vermont State House , and the Chicago Board of Trade Building , all of which have historical links with agriculture and agricultural trade. List of Roman agricultural deities In ancient Roman religion , agricultural deities were thought to care for every aspect of growing, harvesting, and storing crops. Preeminent among these are such major deities as Ceres and Saturn , but

9360-581: The year on its "miraculous plain". Vitruvius (c.80 – 15 BC) describes the "Temple of Ceres near the Circus Maximus" (her Aventine Temple) as typically Araeostyle , having widely spaced supporting columns, with architraves of wood, rather than stone. This species of temple is "clumsy, heavy roofed, low and wide, [its] pediments ornamented with statues of clay or brass, gilt in the Tuscan fashion ". He recommends that temples to Ceres be sited in rural areas: "in

9464-438: Was a hemispherical pit or underground vault in Rome, now lost. It was usually sealed by a stone lid known as the lapis manalis . On August 24, October 5 and November 8, it was opened with the official announcement mundus patet ("the mundus is open") and offerings were made there to agricultural or underworld deities, including Ceres as goddess of the fruitful earth and guardian of its underworld portals. Its opening offered

9568-537: Was a high position within Roman society and religion. Therefore, the selection process was difficult for those wishing to be chosen as flamen . In the case of the Flamen Dialis , they were appointed by the Pontifex Maximus . By the Pontifical College , three nominations were given to the pontifex maximus , those whom Romans believed to be the most worthy of such position. The Pontifex Maximus did not just select

9672-568: Was adopted variously as a brewer's motto, celebration, warning, and a subject of art in Renaissance Europe, especially the north and the Dutch Republic. Ceres represented the grains that produced beer through the brewing process. Imagery that represented the profitable business of commercial brewing showed the grain-goddess as a respectable matron and Liber-Bacchus as a gentleman; a wholesome picture of moral sobriety and restraint. Ceres

9776-515: Was almost certainly held before the annual sowing of grain. The divine portion of sacrifice was the entrails ( exta ) presented in an earthenware pot ( olla ). In a rural, agricultural context, Cato the Elder describes the offer to Ceres of a porca praecidanea (a pig, offered before harvesting). Before the harvest, she was offered a propitiary grain sample ( praemetium ). Ovid tells that Ceres "is content with little, provided that her offerings are casta " (pure). Ceres' main festival, Cerealia ,

9880-402: Was formalised in titles such as Augusta mater agrorum ("The august mother of the fields) and Ceres Augusta . On coinage, various emperors and empresses wear her corona spicea , showing that the goddess, the emperor and his spouse are conjointly responsible for agricultural prosperity and the all-important provision of grain. A coin of Nerva (reigned AD 96–98) acknowledges Rome's dependence on

9984-560: Was held from mid to late April. It was organised by her plebeian aediles and included circus games ( ludi circenses ). It opened with a horse-race in the Circus Maximus , whose starting point lay below and opposite to her Aventine Temple; the turning post at the far end of the Circus was sacred to Consus , a god of grain-storage. After the race, foxes were released into the Circus, their tails ablaze with lighted torches, perhaps to cleanse

10088-507: Was held just before the Feriae Sementivae . W.H. Roscher lists these deities among the indigitamenta , lists of names kept by the pontiffs for invoking specific divine functions. The names of other specialized agricultural gods are preserved in scattered sources. Flamen A flamen (plural flamines ) was a priest of the ancient Roman religion who was assigned to one of fifteen deities with official cults during

10192-429: Was held to a specific standard with strict rules. The flamen could not perform the duties of the flaminica and she could not perform the duties of her husband. One example would be the honour killing and sacrifice of a ram, which was known as an offering to Jupiter and could only be done by the flaminica on market days. The flamen couldn't perform his sacred duties without the flaminica . These positions of serving

10296-488: Was in the case of the flamen 's wife (Latin, flaminica ). They were not allowed to wear Calcei Morticini , "shoes made from the skin of an animal that had died of natural causes." Since the animal was not part of a religious ritual or offered to the gods, these shoes would be seen as impure and disrespectful to the gods. Another disadvantage for the flamines was that they "were also forbidden to touch, see, or refer to yeast, raw meat, goats, dogs, ivy, or beans," because it

10400-510: Was known as the ritus graecus Cereris ; its priestesses were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention"; the recruitment of respectable matrons seems to acknowledge the civic value of the cult. It was based on ancient, ethnically Greek cults to Demeter, most notably the Thesmophoria to Demeter and Persephone , whose cults and myths also provided

10504-423: Was reasonably due. For her service at burials or cremations, well-off families offered Ceres sacrifice of a pig. The poor could offer wheat, flowers, and a libation. The expected afterlife for the exclusively female initiates in the sacra Cereris may have been somewhat different; they were offered "a method of living" and of "dying with better hope". The mundus cerialis or Caereris mundus ("the world of Ceres")

10608-405: Was reserved to respectable matrons, be they married, divorced or widowed. The process of their selection and their relationship to Ceres' older, entirely male priesthood is unknown; but they far outnumbered her few male priests, and would have been highly respected and influential figures in their own communities. Roman tradition credited Ceres' eponymous festival, Cerealia , to Rome's second king,

10712-517: Was thought that these could interfere with the flamen 's religious practices. Most of these were associated with unsanitariness or death. When these flamines would have to perform ritual sacrifices, it was almost impossible for the flamen to avoid contact with raw meat. However, Roman accounts do not include such events in their writings. Another thing flamines were forbidden from was binding. They could not be bound to anything because it could hinder and jeopardize their position as flamen . Therefore,

10816-525: Was viewed as unlucky to be widowed. The flamen and flaminica could not separate or divorce. The only way to escape a marriage was through death, because, once they attained their positions, they became the property of the deity they were assigned to. Since they ruled together, they were also responsible for performing certain rituals together. During certain practices and rituals, the flamen and flaminica had to follow certain rules, such as leaving during purification rituals. Another ritual practiced by

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